The European Trump: Martin Luther as a Populist Politician of His Era

In modern media, many journalists have attempted to identify the European equivalent of Donald Trump. The names often mentioned include Boris Johnson, Viktor Orbán, Alexander Lukashenko, and even Giorgia Meloni. Say what you will about these individuals, but none of them are truly like Donald Trump. Instead, I propose that the closest comparison to Trump in European history is Martin Luther.

At first glance, this might seem surprising and out of left field. Reflecting on my history lessons about Luther, I viewed him as a stern, old man overly concerned with the specifics of church function, much like a civil servant might be preoccupied with the functionality of a new IT system.

However, upon further inspection, I discovered how wrong I was. Luther was a populist who harnessed public support for his radical political and religious aims. He was a man with revolutionary beliefs who mastered the art of 'spin' wherever he went, and more importantly, wherever his writings reached.

Luther was born at the tail end of the Middle Ages in 1483 to a deeply religious household and by 17, he had entered the University of Erfurt. What is certain about his adolescence and early adulthood is that he hated it. He hated university, his first job in law, and the great thinkers like Aristotle and Gabriel Biel whom he was forced to study and idolise. All this led him to enter a monastery in Erfurt to escape the world of his youth.

So, after reading all that, how can he be compared to the 45th President of the United States? By all means, it seems that Luther was an intellectual with a set of religious morals and ethics. Meanwhile, let's just say Trump is not known for his academic rigor and morals. However, my comparison of these two individuals does not stem from an analysis of their early lives or personalities. Instead, the striking similarities come from how both men conducted their politics.

Luther was not the first to use the printing press for political ends, but he was by far the most successful. By printing 300,000 copies of his work between 1518 and 1520, he ensured his ideas spread across Europe. However, spreading his religious message did not mean he successfully converted everyone who encountered it. Instead, people talked about Luther. Both noble and pauper either loved or hated him because his message spread so far.

The same pattern can be seen with Donald Trump. The former President was not the first politician to use Twitter, and by the time he began rapidly growing on the platform, it was already quite popular. Despite the noise of thousands of different political views on Twitter, he was able to cut through and gain the attention of millions of followers. His increasing audience on social media did not necessarily convince everyone of his views, but it did make everyone have an opinion on him. He used Twitter to make everyone love or hate him.

From this point, we can find many ways to compare the two men. Through their increasing relevance in their respective societies, they were able to create a cultural conflict where society was either horrified or inspired by them. Consequently, they cultivated a base of support that revered Luther and Trump in a cult-like fashion.

More similarities can be seen between these two different groups of die-hard supporters. In 1519, Luther engaged in a fierce theological debate with his rival Johann Eck in a public forum. From the first-hand historical evidence, it seems that Eck won the debate by exposing Luther as a new Jan Hus (Hus was burnt at the stake for his religious views). However, Luther ensured that his Europe-wide audience did not share the same view as the eyewitnesses. Using his many supporters and the printing press, he labelled the debate a victory and always referred to it as such. Consequently, many second-hand documents from that time discuss Luther's victory in the debate, although this was not the case.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump clearly lost the 2020 Presidential election. He did not perform well in his debates against Joe Biden, and the American public chose Biden over Trump. However, from the night of the election onwards, he referred to the election as 'rigged' and railed against the result on Twitter. As a result, Trump and his conspiracy theorist supporters convinced millions of Americans that he actually won the election, leading to 2,500 of them storming the Capitol in his name on January 6th.

A large part of Trump's support comes from his evangelical base. That ideology of evangelism can be traced back to Luther's beliefs and support in the 16th century. Perhaps modern Trump supporters are seeking what they had in Luther all those centuries ago. Maybe Luther isn't the European Trump, but rather Trump is the American Martin Luther.

Bibliography

Bainton, Roland, Here I stand: A life of Martin Luther (New York: Penguin: 1995) p.44-120

Elton. G.R., Reformation Europe: 1517-1559 (London: Collins: 1963) p.177-p.185

Holland, Tom and Dominic Sandbrook, “The Rest Is History: Luther Parts 1-5”, 2024 [Accessed July  2024]

Marty, Martin. Martin Luther, (Viking Penguin: 2004) p.1-15

Massing, Michael, “How Martin Luther Paved the Way for Donald Trump”, The Nation, 19 April 2018 https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/how-martin-luther-paved-the-way-for-donald-trump/  [Accessed July 2024]